Mr. Vice-President, as it has been proposed that the members of the Council of States should be elected by the Lower Houses of the provincial legislatures, it is necessary that a system should be laid down for the election of the members as would be fair to men holding different views. It has accordingly been suggested that in their election the system of proportional representation by means of the single transferable vote should be used. Honourable Members may be afraid that, if this system is accepted, it would mean the introduction of communal electorates by the backdoor. We know the evils of communal electorates. We know that the partition of India is the direct result of such electorates. We have therefore to be on our guard against any system of election that would lead to the maintenance of the old evil in a new form, but let us consider whether the acceptance of the suggestion that has been made would in practice amount to the election of the members of the Council of States by people belonging to separate communities. In order to clarify our minds, it is necessary for us to consider how the members of the provincial legislative assemblies will be elected. They will not be elected on the basis of communal electorates. The electorates will be mixed. They will have consist of men of all communities, and the men returned by mixed electorates are not likely to be imbued with communal virulence. It should not be supposed that the representatives of any community would be able to get in merely by the votes of the members of that community. They will have to seek the suffrages of mixed electorates and it may therefore be supposed–we may take it for granted–that if they want to maintain their position, if they want to be re-elected, they will have to follow a policy that is not based on religious or communal divisions. Now if we get such members in the Lower Houses of the provincial legislatures, is there any reason to fear that if the system of proportional representation by means of the single transferable vote were introduced for the election of the members of the Council of States, the evils of communal electorates would be maintained or intensified? Sir, we ought not to consider this question entirely from the point of view of the representation of different communities. We ought also to consider the need for the representation of persons holding views that are not popular, and the method of proportional representation would enable fair representation to be given to minorities holding views different from those of the majority. Unless the system of proportional representation is introduced, the views that are unpopular would never be represented. Take, Sir, the election of members to the Constituent Assembly. There are some members of this House who do not belong to the Congress and have yet been able to get elected. They have been able to secure their election because of the existence of the method of proportional representation with the single transferable vote for the election of the members of the Constituent Assembly. But for this system no one who was not a Congressman could have been here.
